Introduction

I would assume that you are well acquainted with the phrase, “work ethic.” By it, we usually mean that someone works hard to not only accomplish the bare minimum of their work, but is internally motivated and disciplined to excel, without someone constantly looking over their shoulder to make sure they do what they are supposed to be doing. This is a good thing, in most cases, and we properly admire such efforts.

I just bumped into this comic since the previous Conversations, and I was struck by how much Christian literature falls in precisely this camp. As I’m looking into doing a church plant, I read quite a bit of literature about church planting and much of it is essentially summarized by, “I have a big church, here’s how you can get a big church too.” I realize that’s crassly cynical, but sometimes I think we could do with a bit more cynicism about the literature we consume in our own circles. Continue reading

We live in a period of time in which individualism is huge and the centrality of the church is almost non-existent. One casualty of this unfortunate arrangement is that coming to the Eucharistic Meal is seen almost solely as an individual’s personal choice, not as a matter of the official ministry of the church. As a campus pastor of mine put it Continue reading

He was worth a hundred of his fellows who, as princes of the church, occupy easy places and play their church politics and trim their sails to every wind, who in their smug observance of the convictions of life and religion offend all honest and searching spirits. No forthright mind can live among them, neither the honest skeptic nor the honest dogmatist.Pearl S. Buck

Last week I posted a rather strong critique of the Truth’s Table podcast entitled “Gender Apartheid.” Those who have followed this blog know that I subsequently took the post down because of charges of racism that were being leveled against me. Yes, I chickened out. Those charges were wicked and untrue.

I grew up in a suburban neighborhood, riding bikes and playing ball in the street in front and the cul-de-sac beside my home. In ball games, as is quite common, whoever brought the gear ruled. If Ringo brought the only baseball bat, even Paul and John had to fall in line… or go home. Continue reading

In the three centuries after the ascension of Jesus Christ, Christians increased in number, eventually flourishing and coming to dominate the whole of the Roman world and beyond. Similarly, in the centuries following Mohammad’s death, Islam flourished and spread from Arabia across the whole of North Africa into Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), up through the Levant into Byzantine lands, across Mesopotamia and into India. Christianity and Islam developed quite differently, even as they began quite differently. This article offers a bird’s-eye view of the growing dominion of these two faiths. Continue reading

Concern is mounting among evangelicals that Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s policy arm, could lose his job following months of backlash over his critiques of President Trump and religious leaders who publicly supported the Republican candidate. Any such move could be explosive for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which has been divided over politics, theology and, perhaps most starkly, race.Sarah Pulliam Bailey